161037P.pdf   12/19/2017  Binyam Baltti  v.  Jefferson B. Sessions, III
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  16-1037
   Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals   
   [PUBLISHED] [Per Curiam - Before Riley and Beam, Circuit Judges, and 
   Rossiter, District Judge] 
   Petition for Review - Immigration. The petitioner's petition for rehearing 
   by panel is granted, and the court's opinion and judgment of July 10, 2017 
   are vacated. Petitioner seeks to narrow his defined social group and the 
   court lacks jurisdiction to consider this argument since it had not been 
   raised before the agency; petitioner does not ask the court to review the 
   BIA's finding that the group he did raise before the BIA - witnesses who 
   personally observed the massacre of members of the Anuak tribe - is not a 
   cognizable social group, and the court will not address the merits of that 
   determination; substantial evidence supported the BIA's determination that 
   there is no nexus between any possible persecution and petitioner's 
   political opinion or any other statutorily protected ground; nor did the 
   agency err in determining petitioner had not shown an objectively 
   reasonable fear of persecution based on his political opinions; as 
   petitioner failed to meet his burden of proof for asylum, he cannot meet 
   the more stringent standard for withholding of removal. 
  
161037P.pdf   07/10/2017  Binyam Baltti  v.  Jefferson B. Sessions, III
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  16-1037
   Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals   
   [PUBLISHED] [Riley, Author, with Beam, Circuit Judge, and Rossiter, 
   District Judge] 
   Petition for review - Immigration. In his petition for review petitioner 
   attempts to narrow his social group from that presented in his appeal to 
   the BIA, and the court does not have jurisdiction to review this newly 
   defined social group; the harms petitioner points to as evidence of past 
   persecution do not compel the finding he experienced past persecution; 
   petitioner has failed to show why rather dated events provide an 
   objectively reasonable basis for a present fear of particularized 
   persecution if he returned to Ethiopia; because petitioner failed to meet 
   his burden of proof with respect to his asylum claim, he necessarily fails 
   to meet the higher burden of proof required for withholding of removal.